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TEXT 4. What is Native American Art?

The term Native American is representative of all the original inhabitants of the Americas, prior to European colonisation. It includes North, Central, South America, West Indies and the Eskimo nations. Despite the expansive cultural base that it symbolizes, Native American art has been relegated to the fringes of the American West until recent years. In order to determine why Native American art became peripheral, and how the change from exclusion to inclusion of culture came to be, it is important to first understand its history.

Art is said to be non-existent unless it has an audience, and that statement is very much at the root of the progression of Native American art.

In Native America, there was no word for ‘art’ prior to Europe’s colonisation. Items were created for functional means only, and those that were better skilled were considered experts, not artists. For example, function might represent a bowl used for cooking, or a garment decorated with eagle feathers so that its wearer could take on the spirit and foresight of an eagle.

Across the different cultures and regions, many had a deep connection to the spirit world and experienced dream or waking states. From the dream state, important and inspirational messages were communicated to the tribes, sometimes through visual means. These visualisations, similar to the Aboriginal dreamscapes of native Australians, formed the basis for Native American art.

The carriers of the messages were tagged with wisdom and their purpose was linked to the collective survival of the tribe, and it can be said that art for Native American nations was more a collective rather than an individual means of expression. The freedom of individualism in European art was not practiced; nevertheless, on rare occasion, some were encouraged in that direction, like EL Blumenschein or Maria Martinez, and Iris Nampeyo, whose forms were based on old Indian pottery.

After the settlement of Europeans and the extinction of many original tribes, an ethnological interest arose. Native American art was considered more artefact than art, with emphasis placed on the historical and educational aspect of a primitive culture. The advanced cultures of the Mayans, Aztecs, Incas for example, were given precedence over other tribes, which created a segregated and less rounded understanding of the art of all Native American nations.

Considering the definition of Native American, this encompasses what is fast becoming labelled as Latin American art. Understandably, it is not possible to define such a broad movement of art into something that is easily definable. Therefore, it is no wonder that sub-divisions are evolving.

(Source: Aaron Art Prints, Quebec Canada. 2012.)

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